News And Research

Comparison of Carcinogen Levels Shows that Electronic Cigarettes are Much Safer Than Conventional Ones:

In contrast, the level of tobacco-specific nitrosamines present in tobacco products are 300 to 1400 times higher. On a weight-for-weight basis, Marlboro has 1400 times higher the level of tobacco-specific nitrosamines than an electronic cigarette cartridge. And keep in mind that these represent the levels in the cartridges and cigarettes, not in the tobacco smoke or e-cigarette vapor which are directly inhaled. Because of the much higher temperatures generated in tobacco combustion compared to propylene glycol vaporization, the delivery of these carcinogens into the vapor is expected to be much lower than into the tobacco smoke.Read More…..

Long-term Effects Of Inhaled Nicotine.

Tobacco smoking has been reported to be associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer, particularly of the lungs. In spite of extensive research on the health effects of tobacco smoking, the substances in tobacco smoke exerting these negative health effects are not completely known. Nicotine is the substance giving the subjective pleasure of smoking as well as inducing addiction. For the first time we report the effect on the rat of long-term (two years) inhalation of nicotine.Read More…..

Ironically, it is now the case that the FDA has officially approved Marlboro, Camel, Newport, Winston, Salem, Virginia Slims and a host of other highly toxic cigarette products, while officially disapproving undeniably safer products, like electronic cigarettes, which deliver vaporized nicotine from a solution made up almost entirely of propylene glycol and nicotine.”

What Utah is basically saying is: “We don’t mind if you smoke, as long as you smoke the most deadly products available. The most highly toxic cigarettes are fine by us, but the clearly safer ones are not allowed in our state.”.Read More…..

Almost anything else that is not acutely toxic (and we know the e-cigs are not) will be safer. Even if e-cigs are about ten times as harmful as smokeless tobacco, that still makes them about 1/10th as harmful as smoking. Smoking is just that bad.

First of all, there is no burning of any plant matter so all those combustion related carcinogens are no longer present. Of course, in most cases, nicotine is still present but, as we’ve written elsewhere, nicotine is one of the more benign elements in tobacco (see our Nicotine FAQ for more on this). All that remains is some uncertainty about the effects of propylene glycol with long term regular use.Read More…..

All about Nicotine (and Addiction):

The effects of nicotine itself are similar to that other popular drug, caffeine. See our (nicotine reading list.) There is no evidence that nicotine causes any substantial risk for cancer, and the research shows that the risk for cardiovascular disease is minimal. The confusion about nicotine comes from anti-smoking activists talking about nicotine and smoking as if they were the same. While it is true that people smoke mostly because of nicotine; nicotine users die mostly because of the smoke.Read More…..

Electronic Cigarette Safety – Carl Phillips Interview:

ECD: Given what we know about the ingredients and carcinogens contained within the electronic cigarette, is there reason to believe it could be a safer alternative to regular cigarettes?

Carl Phillips:I think that’s quite an understatement. I think there’s absolutely no doubt that it is a safer alternative to regular cigarettes. Now safe, that’s a word that implies there is absolutely no health risk from something, and that doesn’t really apply to anything. But our estimate is that it is probably in the order of 99 percent less harmful than smoking, I think there’s little doubt that it’s down in the neighborhood.

ECD: Professor Michael Siegel suggested that if we banned electronic cigarettes based on the carcinogens found in the FDA study we would have to ban peanut butter. Is that something you would agree with?